What about deism? (Introduction)

by Cary Cook , Monday, June 23, 2008, 00:58 (5996 days ago) @ dhw

>I'm going to have to modify my acceptance of your definition of believe (1), which = to think something is true or probable. It's not strong enough. There has to be an inner conviction (which is missing from all your definitions of "believe"). If the weather forecast is a 51% chance of rain, I can't go round saying I believe ... i.e. am really, honestly, truly convinced in my heart of hearts ... that it's going to rain. - "Inner conviction" and "heart of hearts" are vague terms which do nothing to clarify what we're talking about. To say I believe1 something by my definition is to correctly identify the concept (more than 50% and less than 100% likelihood). To say I believe1 something in my heart of hearts adds nothing but "really really really" to the concept, i.e. to put it close to 100%.
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>>Cary: "Your classic definition of agnosticism is defective, because it cites only one of the two types."
The classic definition (as opposed to the more modern definition) is that of T.H. Huxley, who invented the term. The fact that it is one of two types does not make it defective, any more than your differentiation between types of belief makes each category defective. I quoted it only to illustrate the flaw in your argument. - Any general definition of a concept which does not include all of the conventionally recognized types of that concept is a defective definition.
The definition is defective for the reason I stated. Your analogy of it being in any way analogous to my differentiation between types of belief is incorrect.
The reason you quoted the statement does not make it any more true than it would have been otherwise, and it didn't even illustrate a flaw in my argument.
I admitted that my statement, "If you know that one of two things is true, are you not forced to believe (1) one of them?" was defective for the other reasons I stated.
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>>>Me: "I don't know which of the alternatives [God/No God] is true, and so I cannot believe either."
>>Cary: "This is totally erroneous by either definition of belief."
>See first item. However, with respect, I think it's going a bit far for you to tell me that I'm wrong when I say I can't believe something. - "This is totally erroneous by either definition of belief." Is a perfectly correct statement, as my following example illustrated & proved.
E.g. You don't know that you will pick an ace out of a deck of 52 cards, but you necessarily believe1 that you won't.
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>>Cary: "Objectivity is totally independent of anyone's agreement."
>True. However, your epistemological definition of "objective" is: "thought to remain the same regardless of diverse opinions." Question: thought by whom? - Whoever is doing the thinking. - >I would say that "the earth rotates round the sun" is an objective statement. - Correct. It's ontologically objective, and epistemologically objective to you who said it. - >Once upon a time, people would have said "the sun rotates round the earth" was an objective statement. - Correct. It was ontologically wrong, but epistemologically objective to them. - >Question: how do we judge statements to be objective? - First we distinguish whether the statement is true only to the thinker or sayer of it, or if it is true independently of the mind of the person thinking/saying it. After that, it's a matter of true/false judgment. How we do that is a matter of how minds work, which I'm not qualified to speak on. - ********
>>Cary (20 June at 19.43): "It's not legitimate to add 'for me' to 'impossible'...possibility is objective."
>You've now agreed that two categories of "impossible for me" are no problem. I'll settle for that. - And I'll settle for you settling for it as long as you don't reinstitute the ambiguity I just spent my time unscrambling. I'm here to clarify for the benefit of people who want clarity, and who recognize it when they see it. If you don't want clarity, or don't recognize it when you see it, I'm done.